Most homes don't really have broadband in Australia

I am bashing out this post on a unreliable 384/64kpbs UTMS (3G data) connection, which feels painfully slow at times compared to my 8000/384kpbs (which is more like 6500/300) ADSL connection at home. Even when I had 1536/256kpbs at home I felt like I was better off than a lot of other people. Most non geeks I know have 512/128kbps.

According Democrats in the US congress 2Mbit/s should be the minimum speed for “broadband”. Although that is now available to many homes in Australia, the cost of anything faster than 512/128 isn’t seen as value for money by many people. I know several people who would like a lower quota and higher speeds for the same price as they are paying now. Even for many businesses (less than 5 people), they see 512/128 as being good enough for email and web browsing. 2048/512 would allow business to use new services such as VoIP and cheap video conferencing, which could improve the level of service they offer to their customers while improving the bottom line.

The biggest barriers to affordable high speed connections in Australia is Sol Trujillo and the other untrustworthy Wiggles at Telstra. Hopefully if there is a change of government at the next Federal election, the “Group of 9” Fibre to the Node network might get built and be open to competition.

Update 2020: Thirteen years later the primarily fibre to the node network built by the government and known as the “National Broadband Network” was finally considered complete. No sooner did that happen, than NBN Co announced they needed to upgrade the network.